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NEW YORK Electricity company Dayton Power & Light said on Monday it would shut down two coal-fired power plants in southern Ohio next year for economic reasons, a setback for the ailing coal industry but a victory for environmental activists. Republican President Donald Trump promised in his election campaign to restore U.S. coal jobs that he said had been destroyed by environmental regulations put into effect by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. Dayton Power & Light, a subsidiary of The AES Corporation, said in an emailed statement that it planned to close the J.M. Stuart and Killen plants by June 2018 because they would not be “economically viable beyond mid-2018.” Coal demand has flagged in recent years due to competition from cheap and plentiful natural gas. The plants along the Ohio River in Adams County employ some 490 people and generate about 3,000 megawatts of power for coal. The closure follows negotiations between Dayton Power & Light, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and stakeholders like the environmental group the Sierra Club over whether the company should be allowed to raise electricity prices to pay for upgrades to keep the plants open. “They are by far our largest employer and it will absolutely be devastating to our community here in Ohio,” Michael Pell, president of First State Bank in Winchester, Ohio, said in a telephone interview. Pell, one of several local community leaders who have lobbied to keep the plants going, has become a spokesman for Adams County on the…more detail

A bill to block the re-opening of the Southern California Gas Co.’s Aliso Canyon natural gas field, responsible for the nation’s biggest methane leak, has cleared a key state Senate committee. SB-57, sponsored by Senator Henry Stern, D-Canoga Park, passed out of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee Thursday on a 7-2 vote. The bill would prevent energy regulators from ruling the facility above Porter Ranch is safe to use until the cause of the massive 112-day leak is known. Texas-based Blade Energy Partners, LTD, is doing that analysis. Their work is not expected to be finished until later…... [read more]

Affordable housing bill again raises question of Atkins conflict A bill sponsored in December by state Sen. Toni Atkins would raise money for affordable housing — a critical state need, but also her wife’s line of work. If approved, Senate Bill 2 would generate revenue for affordable housing by tacking a $75 to $225 filing fee on property transfers, excluding... Californians are paying billions for power they don't need The bucolic orchards of Sutter County north of Sacramento had never seen anything like it: a visiting governor and a media swarm — all to christen the first major natural gas…... [read more]

Should all utility consumers subsidize the wealthier few who like to drive electric cars? It’s hardly a fair question. Yet that’s what the California Public Utilities Commission will eventually have to decide, now that utilities have proposed a $1 billion plan to build and effectively own the state’s retail charging network of tomorrow. And it won’t be much of a decision, because last year the state legislature in Senate Bill 350 directed utilities to make just this proposal, as well as commanded the commission to approve it subject to the usual safeguards against unreasonable costs. Like most direct government interventions…... [read more]

Has there ever been a Super Bowl so eagerly anticipated? Will President Donald Trump drop a bombshell in his pre-game interview with Bill O’Reilly? And what glitzy blitz will Lady Gaga launch during her halftime show? Will the “Born This Way” diva go high or low as she tries to blow away the game-changing president? And by the way, Fox says it’s going to wedge an NFL football game into the Sunday spectacle. San Diego may have been jilted by the League, but on this national TV day we can sit back with friends, savor eccentrically flavored chips, and throw…... [read more]

From the road, the close to 400 white industrial boxes packed into 1.5 acres of barren land in Ontario, California, a little more than 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles, look like standard electrical equipment. They’re surrounded by a metal fence, stand on concrete pads and sit under long electrical lines. But take a closer look and you’ll notice the bright red coloring and gray logo of electric car company Tesla on the sides. And inside the boxes are thousands of battery cells – the same ones that are used in Tesla’s electric cars – made by the company in…... [read more]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California natural gas storage facility where a blowout spewed methane for nearly four months has completed a safety review required to resume operations, though it might never return to full capacity, state officials said Tuesday. The Southern California Gas Co. facility at Aliso Canyon has been crippled more than a year since the blowout discovered in October 2015 drove 8,000 families from their Los Angeles homes and led to mass complaints of nosebleeds, nausea, headaches and other maladies. Fewer than a third of the 113 wells at the aging former oil field have passed rigorous…... [read more]

Dec 30 York Water Co * York water -pennsylvania public utility commission approved agreement to purchase wastewater collection system assets of west york borough in york county, pennsylvania Further company coverage:... [read more]

By Lawrence Delevingne | NEW YORK NEW YORK When six executives of Platinum Partners, including founder Mark Nordlicht, were arrested on Monday on federal charges of running a more than $1 billion hedge fund fraud, people who had long alleged they were harmed by the New York-based firm felt some vindication. But the possibility that each defendant might face prison terms has done little to soothe their continued anger over losses that may never be recouped. One such person is Houston-based energy entrepreneur John Hoffman. In the charges, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission…... [read more]

Back in 1987, when Jessica Burdman and her then-husband were shopping for a house in San Francisco, they found themselves priced out of their popular Noe Valley neighborhood. They looked southeast — and up — to nearby Bernal Heights. A working-class community, it offered small vintage houses on a severely raked hillside with majestic views, when you scrambled to the top. The couple paid $189,000 for a 900-square-foot house on a street not inappropriately called Bonview. They added a second floor. Theirs wasn’t just any house, but an “earthquake shack,” one of the thousands of wooden cottages built to temporarily…... [read more]

This article first appeared on FairWarning.org Gwen Caplan’s nightmare began with a Yelp search. It was 2012 and the middle-aged mother of two was looking for someone to move her and her kids from California to Arizona. Money was tight, so Caplan scoured the web for a reputable moving company. Her search unearthed several options—one was called America’s Best Movers, but it had terrible reviews. “I said to myself, ‘It’s a good thing I used Yelp,’” Caplan would later tell a criminal grand jury. Your browser does not support iframes. Eventually, she found a company in San Jose called Encore…... [read more]